This record is blasted out to an extreme. Nothing is distinguishable. The vocals, guitars, drums, and every other instrument you can’t make out blend together into a noise soup. Through that all that remains is a really primal energy. It’s that loud, unrestrained, caustic energy that really invigorates the soul. There’s not much left to say about this. Despite its rough recording, it still rocks seriously hard.
The impact APATIA had on the then-emerging Polish DIY punk/HC scene is immeasurable. The first time I was in Europe, it seemed like everyone in every town would mention this band I had never heard of. I left the country with a handful of cassette releases and worked my way through their material deliberately, because APATIA isn’t really the kind of band you just put on and rage. The context, the time, the band…it’s the combination of everything that makes them work, and that’s abundantly clear in the Refuse Records reissue of their second demo from 1991. Much like many of the more genre-pushing DIY hardcore bands in the North American 1990s, they covered a ton of sonic territory, especially on their later releases, and hearing them forge those paths on these early recordings is excellent. A complete divergence from the “known” punk bands that came a few years before them, APATIA bypass traditional anthemic punk completely, opting for tough and determined hardcore mixed with a quirky originality that would have found them right at home on US labels like Very Small (the epic “Duma i Pycha +… Ciągłe Pytania” could practically be a PLAID RETINA outtake). The songs are great, and the songs are interesting, but really it’s the “where” and the “when” that makes the document mandatory—because while few bands sounded like this then, no one sounded like this there then. And Poland listened, through at least seven albums and a slew of live tapes and demos, Poland listened and Polish punks paid attention. You should pay attention, too—history is fucking important.
The music on APATIA’s 1992 debut varies a bit within its HC/punk framework. While the drums beat an even pace, the guitarist plays palm-muted riffs, conventional leads, or dissonant, almost math-rock scales along with the standard three distorted chords. They can also quiet down while the bass and drums lead. The band is innovative while remaining faithful to the genre. Unfortunately, the songs don’t always tie these different sounds together. They can sound like parts of altogether different songs spliced into one. But APATIA on record are an otherwise tight unit, even when their musical ambitions get ahead of them.
Another killer live cassette by the masterminds at Primitive Screwhead. This was actually my first exposure to the ART GRAY NOIZZ QUINTET, who play mid-tempo, sleazy noise rock. This was recorded mere days before all the COVID lockdown protocols began, so it stands to reason that this was likely the last live musical experience that the crowd that fateful evening would experience for quite some time. Listening to it on cassette, I would imagine that those who were lucky enough to be in attendance were held over for quite some time thanks to these nasty grooves delivered by the QUINTET.
While the 2020s are still running on ignorant punk stomps, in the mountains of North Carolina there are four people who are determined to keep pushing the epic crust envelope further and further. Stunning, downtuned, apocalyptic D-beat lurches, replete with over-the-top guitar leads and dual vocals that seem all obligatory not because “they’re supposed to do that” but because it all needs to be there. You can feel it. For a band to sound so simultaneously confident and desperate is beyond refreshing, even while the tonnage from these two songs crushes you from the inside. AUTARCH has been in the game for a while, and they sound more important than ever.
BLURT was the unhinged id under the cool demeanor of the Manchester scene focused around Factory Records. Led by poet, performance artist, and saxophone blartist Ted Milton, BLURT’s name summed up their exploding art brut attack, howling absurdist Tzaraist cut-ups (my favorite titles: “Dog Save My Sole” and “My Mother Was a Friend of an Enemy of the People”) over minimal loops of fractured guitar and a stripped-down kit of stiff funk drum breaks. This reissue pairs their first LP with a second disc compiling their first four singles, including the uptight gonzo classic “The Fish Needs a Bike.”
One three-minute track of vicious powerviolence and raw hardcore with excellent harmonic vocals. A punctuated assault of brutal blasts and breakdowns. This flexi really accentuates the band’s tightness, timing, and ferocity. It almost feels like a three-chapter musical that detonates in a chant in solidarity. Out of Baltimore, OH, for fans of ’80s UK thrashcore, anarcho/peace punk, powerviolence, hardcore, and excellent vocals. Reminded a bit of RUBBLE, MELT BANANA, HOPE?…this brief mind-bender is punk as fuck.
When I reviewed the BOMBARDEMENT EP last month, I never saw this monster follow-up LP coming. On Le Futur Est Là, the band simultaneously pays great honor to and transcends traditional DISCHARGE-worship with their sharp and calculated panache. The guitar on this record gets increasingly bonkers as it goes on, soloing us all straight to hell with smiles on our faces. Hailing from the beautiful, wine-drunk city of Bordeaux, BOMBARDEMENT picks up on elements of the sound that most other D-enizens have neglected, such as the pared-down primitive menace and background cacophony of “Poison” and the build-up of chaos on “Predateur.” On top of all this madness, you can hear the singer literally throwing her entire soul into every performance. The best part is, it kinda feels like they’re just getting started. I haven’t been able to stop listening to this. It’s A+ shit, kids. The future is here, indeed.
Delivering some faithful DISCHARGE-worship from France, this record showcases a new lineup for BOMBARDEMENT, in which singer Oriane provides some excellent Cal-inspired vocals that give this band their edge in my opinion. Four solid tracks.
I always like to look at the art of the album before listening to a record, so I feel like I can try to guess what it is going to sound like—this one was a surprise, a really great surprise. I love everything about this LP: the voice, the guitars, the drums, the bass. One thing that makes me really excited about this band is that they kinda remind me of SCARLET’S REMAINS, a deathrock band I used to listen to when I was like fifteen years old. I mean, not that they sound the same, they have a totally different style, but this album is pure obscure perfection. Amazing record for deathrockers and post-punkers.
It’s been fun for the last year-plus to clock the evolution of BZDET’s consistently excellent output. The mysterious artist(s?) has been cranking out a slew of tapes and digital EPs, portions of which get collected here. BZDET smears bass lines, synth-blurt, and pitch-shifted vocals together like a punk BLANK DOGS. BZDET would be right at home on a Ralph Records sampler, and would probably even steal the show. There’s a RENALDO AND THE LOAF kind of lurch to the more playful cuts and an undeniable CHROME frizz to the menacing ones. “Bad News” has a nasty edge to it until sliding into the demented “Wszyscy Wymrzemy.” Half the time the song just comes barging into the room, all sharp elbows and curled lips. And yet, they can do barren tundra post-punk as well as anyone currently scowling in the shadows. But really it sounds like all my fave-rave early ’80s German tapeheads who made punk with anything they could dig out of the garbage or find in the pantry. This isn’t even the best stuff! There’s already new material out from this busy musical formation. Have you caught the buzz yet?
Here’s a band that does the sleaze-rock-meets-heavy-metal sound with some actual flair—not to mention brains. From track one, you know what you’re in for, as whining dog leads and the classic “slam on the piano” riff set the stage for rhythmic pyrotechnics and lead singer Ben Portnoy’s incredibly commanding growl. This band raises hell in a way most rock bands forget how to, and they don’t sound the least bit stale for all their reference (and reverence) to the hazy halls of hallowed rock that came before. Part of what makes the formula so fresh is that there’s clearly more thinking going on than the group might want to let on at first. Take some of the lyrics from ripper “Cecila”: “Volunteer your story to your new chosen friend / Treat it like a rag through the back of your head / Follow suit, dirty the bowl / Dread dripping from your pockets as you power home.” That’s practically out of a novel for my money, and it lends serious pathos to a record that’s more than just a good time (although it is also most certainly that). Unreal record. Stone classic that breathes smoke and pukes fire.
Fucking great. Classic American-style hardcore with Rollins-esque exhausted vocals hollered over blown-out, fast punk riffs, and non-stop drum attacks. Four songs recorded as one track in under five minutes. First track “Mee Bee” has start/stop, fast beat slam breaks that rule. “Ignite” starts with a creepy-crawl beat and then slows it waaay down to a nasty caveman stomp. I can only imagine how hard the elbows must fly at this part. True broken-nose, pit-crush music. “Wife” has a simple bass riff, driven by tom rolls. It all turns into a furious D-beat rager and doesn’t let up until it’s over. “Pee” finishes out the tape with another fast rager. If this tape came out in 1980, we would all know about it—it’s that good. Check out that cover too—perfect. This is exactly my jam and it comes highly recommended. I’m gonna go listen to it again.
Wowee! Now here’s something interesting. Maine’s CELEBRITY HANDSHAKE’s four-song, aptly-titled LP Move Back to Outer Space is some truly out-of-this-world “music.” The vocals bark and bellow—sometimes coherently, other times anything but. The guitar is sharp and fuzzed-out, very occasionally jamming out an identifiable riff. The drums keep some kind of a beat sometimes. The production—non-existent. The thing that makes this album so right to me is how wrong it is. My favourite track on the album is the total spontaneous free-for-all known as “Meet Me in the Iron Cage,” a free-jazz-inspired cacophony of sound overlaid with a bellowing malcontent challenging you to a one-on-one “tonight!” over the top of it all. God bless this mess.
This band has got it going on with the band name CHARGED D.I.S. They play a calamity of noise, with strange samples, awkward graphics, D-beat rhythms, classic riffing, and a warbled recording with from-the-throat singing. A lot of the constant sampling is children crying. I can hardly read the song titles, but I’m pretty sure they include “Killing” and “Humans.” The demo insert folds out and suggests you “cut here” (at the dotted line) “and hang” a (miniature) poster design. That’s just funny. It is of a larger gas-masked figure marionetting a smaller gas-masked figure with the header “D New World Graves.” There are also graves in the image. I’m hoping CHARGED D.I.S. made like ten of these and I’m now rich, because I could see that happening. Play this for your dog, see what happens. D.I.S. FTW.
There’s so much to say about this record, but a few short sentences will have to suffice. Судургу Тыллар is all over the place in the best way. “Соҕотох” is a brooding, melancholic number, the title track has adrenaline-fueled RADIOACTIVITY energy with wild hardcore vocals, “Буор босхо” is a wild, psyched-out timeless punk number, “Эн олоҕуҥ” packs a powerful Aussie punk punch—there’s straight hardcore, there are drug-addled guitar freakouts, awkward stomps, uncomfortable sounds. Dirty and dangerous. It’s everything I want from a punk record and it only cements my admiration for the punks in Siberia. The DIY punk scene in the Sakha region of Siberia has been “discovered” a few times over the last several years by mainstream “press,” but the punks in the capital city of Yakutsk just keep cranking the punk that they want to make…which is probably why music, and the people who make it, are so compelling. Hats off to World Gone Mad for (finally) bringing these sounds to the West.
Mod teen Dave Burnett and his family emigrated from the UK and settled in Melbourne, Australia in late 1965. Shortly after arriving, he met local musician Lee Cutelle, and they quickly became life-long friends and forged a songwriting partnership—Dave wrote the lyrics and Lee wrote the music—that would last from 1966 to 1980. Reminder has pulled together their total recorded output from that period and packaged it in a very handsome gatefold sleeve with some sweet liner notes detailing their history. But to summarize, these guys would write some really catchy songs that should have been bigger than they were, fail to sell many records, then rebrand and adopt whatever sound was popular at the time. So, we start with the lone 45 from DAVE ‘N’ LEE, originally issued in 1969—two tracks of orchestrated psych-pop that fall somewhere on the spectrum between early BYRDS records and the COWSILLS. Next are the two 45s from BEAUT, named after an Aussie version of Tiger Beat and sounding like a mix of AM schmaltz and late ’70s power pop. After getting wind of the first wave of UK punk, they decided to toughen up a bit and release a 45 as BRANDED, where they played SWEET-like glam with just a dab of punk in the rough production. Then they tried their hand at punk proper in 1980, releasing a 45 as BRITISH JETS. It sounds like fake punk (because it is), but it produced what I think is the best song on the record. “No News”, which sounds surprisingly contemporary, is just some solid RAMONES-core with a catchy power pop chorus. It’s great! It’s hard to say this release is essential, but there’s plenty to love here if you’re able to stomach this much saccharine.
Washington DC’s DEMAND’s demo from last year delivers some super solid hardcore. Very danceable with some nice hints of melody while still keeping it HC to the very core—the type of hardcore that wouldn’t be out of place on the Triple B roster. This debut release demonstrates some real powerful potential for this band and I’m really stoked to see what’s up next—recommended!
When this one was originally released back in May 2021, right at the crest of the pandemic, it came to my attention that it was made by three kids in a town near the town I live in. Being that most of the “DIS” bands are hit-or-miss for me, I was a bit skeptical. But boy, was I wrong! This is a killer demo, and they sure know their DISCHARGE really well! I was instantly hooked on this one and they became one of my favourite Portuguese bands. This excellent demo showcases five songs that sound like they were recorded in ’82 on Stoke-on-Trent, plus a DISCLOSE cover. Bright things will come for these youngsters’ future if they keep this level of dedication up.
Athens, Greece trio leaning heavy into a pop-synth/drum-machine soundscape, only to break the mold with vocals that range from post-punk to new wave dance to weirdo DIE ANTWOORD-esque rapping (see “Φεύγουμε Από Εδώ (Let’s Get Out of Here)” featuring SCI-FI RIVER). In this way, each song is its own oddball trip. The album translates to “Emotional Disease,” and maybe that explains it all.
Novelty Christmas album from Hawaiian-based pop punk band EL SANCHO. Six songs of RAMONES-core pop punk filled with repetitive sing-songy vocals and catchy guitar leads. Pretty entertaining as far as novelty Christmas songs go. “Merry Christmas Joey Ramone” had me coming back for a few extra listens.
Amazing cassette with five songs in Catalan. I feel like they have some post-punk moments and some Oi! moments, and I really, really appreciate that. The track that really catches me from this tape is “Les Vies,” ‘cause I love some hardcore drums and then some “tupa tupa,” but I mean, every song on this cassette is fucking great.
ETERNO RITORNO is a punk band from the Veneto region in northern Italy, formed with people from bands like TETRO PUGNALE, KNIGHTZZ, and 3ND7R. This is their debut EP, and it comes in the form of a cassette tape limited to 30 illustrated copies; a beauty of four songs full of dread, anger and desperation. The sound reminds me of the beautiful noise of the Italian hardcore wave of the ’80s, but it is precisely the rabid delivery of the vocals that gives a definite personality to a band that explores all the vicissitudes of living in a deeply conservative region of the country. Keep an eye on them, they have a bright future.
There’s something about the title “Asbestos Fiber in a Sunbeam” that makes me happy. The picture I have in my mind is somewhat uplifting, and I really need that these days. The song is a rollicking, fuzzy stomper. It’s energizing. “Sad Labor” is slower with a lilting off-kilter quality that grows to sound big and expansive, then ends with the guitar just strumming slowly. I like this a lot.
In just four short tracks, FASHION CHANGE put all of their cards on the table. This is really some good old-fashioned, no-frills hardcore punk with all of the audio fidelity of recording in a rotten dumpster. Hey, maybe that’s the way punk was designed to sound. The vocals are close enough to fit on a screamo record, the drums endlessly beat the listener, and the guitars growl like chainsaws. This is one that just isn’t for me. It’s just too grimy and loose to get into, but I have no doubt there is an audience for this EP. If you like the feeling of being trampled in a mosh pit, then this is about as close to that feeling as you’ll find in a recording.
“The shit has hit the fan” is the rough translation of the Brazilian slang used as an EP title for Barcelonians FINAL SLUM WAR. They have had enough with the constant oppression of modern life, and they are here to make their statement. Eleven minutes of hatred and aggression towards everything and everyone that corrupts the system in a vicious, raw D-beat fashion. BESTHÖVEN, DOOM, and EXTREME NOISE TERROR come to mind when listening to this one. Curious that the themes in this EP truly reflect life in Brazil, a constant struggle just to survive.
I am happy to report that FIRESTARTER indeed does exactly what it says on the tin—Los Angeles straight edge. Immensely danceable youth crew-type beat not dissimilar to FLOORPUNCH. The riffs are crucial. The lyrics are vital. And the instrumentation is another positive HC power-word. In other words, it’s everything you want in a youth crew recording. All of this topped off with an Ian MacKaye sample as the outro, which is definitely a worthy way to close out your straight edge release—much better than how UNIFORM CHOICE decided to end that first album!
Naturally, when you see the name FIX, most of you will probably think of the Detroit hardcore band, and a smaller percentage will wonder why the extra “X” is missing from those new wavers that wrote “One Thing Leads to Another.” You would be wrong on both accounts in this case, and while finding any info on this band was nigh impossible, I wasn’t disappointed by these Germans’ full-throttle garage punk. Every song mows you down with strictly down-strummed, tightly-wound power chord riffs, and the drummer’s wrists must be bionic with all those relentless RAMONES-ian hi-hats. If you love the MARKED MEN template but also sprechen sie Deutsch, then it may behoove you to seek out this record.
A truly rabid hardcore attack from Athens, GA, FOODEATER comes in too fast for love on this tape’s first track and barely lets up for the remaining twelve songs. Rarely do we get this type of blistering punk at such volume, especially on a debut effort. What they lack in subtlety and nuance they make up for with rowdy relentlessness and conviction, and this cassette should come with a little packet of aspirin.
Melancholy songs always sound beautiful. If you are someone who does not pay attention to lyrics, you will easily be lost in the pleasing, comforting sounds of “Lose Everything.” If you pay attention to lyrics, the disillusion and desolation being sung is wonderfully cathartic. It’s been ten years since the last GENTLEMAN JESSE record. On this one, the pandemic forced him to go it alone and play all the instruments. The isolation and self-reliance adds to the effect. My mind starts going as the music plays and then an interesting lyrical line will jump out of me. The result is an intimate collection of songs that reminds me of some of the more introspective ’80s college rock bands. 2021 was a shitty year and 2022 is starting off worse. As ELTON JOHN once said, sad songs say so much.
Synths and punk—it’s not that they don’t mix, but it’s tough enough to blend the two that it’s generally advisable to keep them separate. All too often, you’ll end up sounding like a punk band with a synth rather than a synth punk band. This is especially true when you opt for some squiggly new wave timbre. Now, I’m not sure GHOULIES—a Perth act featuring members of ABORTED TORTOISE and KITCHEN PEOPLE—avoid this pitfall entirely, but it definitely doesn’t sound like they just have a synth going in the background (or worse, drowning out the rest of the band). Over the seven tracks on this EP, they weave synth lines—often very silly ones—into their brand of frenetic, start/stop garage punk, and it really gives the record a delirious edge that pairs nicely with the unhinged, multi-tracked vocals you’re getting on a lot of these tracks. Not every track on here works, but the ones that don’t are still short enough that you’ll barely notice. At the very least, give the opening track “B.O.” a listen—it smokes!
Absolute beast of a debut LP from this Spanish band that sings comfortably in Spanish and Basque. This band arrives with a fully-formed sound reminiscent of Oi! and Basque radical rock, but that also reflects ’80s influences like NEGATIVE APPROACH. This is an aesthetic exercise around hatred. Hatred directed towards a decadent society, and in particular, towards the rotten cities of Europe, sold out to capital. An exercise of hatred that vindicates the angry dignity and the vital vehemence of knowing oneself in constant opposition to everything, but which also finds transcendence in the haughtiness of resistance, in the opportunities generated by the city streets at night.
This ten-track ripper is for those who love their hardcore old school and in-your-face. Starting with a great stomping track called, appropriately enough, “Intro,” this Oakland, CA two-piece rages fast and hard. Any one of these songs could have been on a seminal hardcore compilation from the mid-’80s, but instead of lyrics bitching about Reagan and Thatcher, GREYHOUND gives you 2020s existential despair, alienation, and personal pain. The only track hinting at anything vaguely political is “Mirroring Constructs,” touching on corporate exploitation and getting caught up in the illusions of status, materialism, and career. GREYHOUND proves that great hardcore doesn’t have to be all politics, all the time. With guest vocals by Trevor McBride (YOUTH IN CRISIS) and Frankie Oh (KANTA KANTA), this is an album to play on repeat.
In just ten minutes, HUGAYZ managed to create a rollercoaster of a cassette. Their sound is hard to pin down. It’s part no wave, part post-punk, another part disco. There isn’t an instrument on this tape that isn’t quirky to an extreme. From cheesy ’80s drum machines to the squirrely synthesizers, the instrumentation gives the sound its character. This is certainly the type of release that you will either love with a burning passion or hate like nothing else.
Perfection, that’s the first word that came to my mind after listening to this absolutely killer record. It’s this kind of post-punk that I fucking love, with a lot of changes, weird drums, noise, dance-y, a strong voice—there’s a lot of good stuff happening that I just can’t describe, people just need to listen to this. “4 Segundos” and “Cores” are the tracks that really blow my mind, this will be in my top ten this year, for sure.
The Stucco label and its offshoots (such as Down South) keep on shittin’ out the hits that hit the fans like a banana split of shit (w/ a cherry floating on top). INSANE URGE isn’t scaling the heights of faves like FUGITIVE BUBBLE or PILGRIM SCREW, but they do deliver a satisfying blast of filthy punk sure to delight everyone from pity dog owners to crypto-dog speculators—a scumbrella under which all may find shelter and also slam into each other like drunken heathens. INSANE URGE lands firmly on the rock’n’roll side of the punk fence, recalling baloneyheads like GIZMOS and SHITDOGS. “There’s a World” is a frantic ass-shaker that rockets straight from the Crypt (Records). Like most Impotent Fetus (by)product, the bass playing is key. Unlock the door and shake it like your momma told ya.
I’m really, really excited about this record, and haven’t been able to stop listening to it since it came out—definitely one of the best things I have heard in a while. This band has people from different places from Latin America and they all play in different amazing punk bands, so for me this is the perfect mix. The whole record is incredible, amazing Latino “tupa tupa.” You should not miss any second of it, and it will not take more than twenty minutes to finish the whole album, as it should be. If I have to choose a favourite track, it is “Ejecutar” for sure.
Fifth release from Londoners ITALIA 90. “Borderline” has a staccato guitar line that turns into a wailing, melodic chorus riff beneath the lyrics “And the thing you’ve created / Is the thing you have hated.” Great track. While “Borderline” has a more traditional structure, “Declare” is the other side of the coin: avant-garde noise rock. Lots of ambient space for drums and a rambling whistle/dial tone, then a sudden wall of sound, shouting a snotty, Cockney “Declare!” Worth the quick listen.
From the Land Down Under comes a vicious D-beat stomp to the head in the form of JALANG, formerly known as LÁI, the name under which the ripper Pontianak was released. With this new moniker, they are back with Santau, a feast of fast D-beat hardcore punk with obvious Swedish inclinations, as well as their own exciting twists and turns, making this an above-average LP. The eleven tracks rip through you like a knife through butter, and they deal with the realities of the modern world filtered through dysphoric eyes. I love it when punk bands retain some sense of politics, and I would say that from the name to the last beat, this is a heavily political album, having its core in gender politics. There is an awesome CONFLICT cover as well. With members and ex-members of PISSCHRIST, MASSES, and SHEER MAG, nothing less than great is expected.
Bakersfield, California stoner grunge trio—does it make any sense at all that the opener “Prick” comes off like UNSANE through a surf filter? It doesn’t make sense, but it grabbed me and I listened with eager ears as these dudes dished out heavy tunes about getting fucked up and being alive. That surf thing I thought I heard never came back, but instead KEVIN just bashed the shit out of seven pieces of early ’90s heavy sludge.
I’m so happy to review these two short blasts of inflammable devices by our favorite Italian-British band, LA RABBIA, both released last year. LA RABBIA is a London-based band with a really cool take on the sounds of anarcho-punk, with some more classic ’77 edge to it. Their last album, In the Face of Atrocities, was reviewed last year by yours truly, so I was pretty pleased by their new offerings, where they continue to explore and expand on their particular sound. “Ideological Weapons” and “Nostro Obitorio” are two gems of pure political fury, like a goth EATER making really dark songs after reading Gramsci. Pretty neat. Now on The Setting in Motion of Horrific Events EP, the band keeps their characteristic tension but wraps it in a much more dynamic sound, somewhere between deathrock and street punk, and with a bonus point, a burgeoning ability to create great hooks and melodies. My favorite track was the one that closes the EP, “La Vulnerabilita,” with a huge, almost Oi! kind of chorus that you just want to scream at the top of your lungs.
Recorded in an abandoned Belgian brewery, LA RACE presents brutally stark, molasses-thick rock-noise. Finding a place just north of black metal hell, the absolutely shredded vocals sound more like KK Null ran out of lozenges again. All jokes aside, this band means fucking business. LA RACE channels BILLY BAO’s furious conceptual gambits, but with the unalleviated disgust aimed inward, like a cancer. When they’re hitting all cylinders, the band conjures the disembodied hardcore of FUSHITSUSHA, slabs of sound sparking like old ghosts tangled in powerlines. Even when it seems subdued, Je Me Rapproche de Mon Squelette (translation: “I’m Getting Closer to My Skeleton”) never lets up on the intensity. An unmistakable howl into the void, you can hear the wind blowing through this album. It won’t keep you warm but it might keep you company.
New Berlin-based label Turbo Discos brings us the debut release from this German outfit, featuring members of LASSIE and EX-WHITE. “Master” kicks off the four-song EP with some hooky downstroke punk. It sounds not unlike early MEAN JEANS, particularly with its lightning-fast rhythm section and booming production. Fortunately that’s where the comparison ends. As soon as I figured out who this reminded me of, some warbly raygun guitars swoop in, the overdubs start getting looser, and a harshly shouted chorus starts up. This ain’t no pop punk! That track ends with its wall-of-sound production crumbling into a C.C.T.V.-ish chicken scratch guitar fadeout. It’s really something! The remainder of the EP is equally as compelling, sounding like a cool mix of contemporary robo-rock (e.g., SET-TOP BOX or RESEARCH REACTOR), the SPITS, and the industrial-tinged garage punk of LILI Z. A real ripper! Handsome cover to boot!
If you dwell in obscure femme-punk circles, there’s a good chance you’ve heard “Take a Ride” by the QUESTIONS—a wildly catchy, almost BUZZCOCKS-ish punky power pop (or poppy power punk?) bop, the song was never officially released, but gets regularly excerpted from a cult 1979 film called La Brune et Moi whose loose narrative (buttoned-up businessman falls in love with an aspiring punk singer) was basically used to stitch together “live” performances from a host of early French punk/new wave acts. The QUESTIONS were actually LES LOU’S, the first all-female punk band in France (two male friends filled in on drums and lead guitar for their film appearance after their original drummer split)—they started out in 1977, quickly landed on tours with the likes of the CLASH, RICHARD HELL, and SUBWAY SECT, but only managed two 1978 comp contributions as their recorded output before falling apart the following year. This four-song archival 12″ clears out the LES LOU’S vault with both of those previously released tracks (a live cover of the SEEDS’ “No Escape” and studio cut “Back in the Street”), plus “Take a Ride” (pulled directly from La Brune et Moi yet again, complete with incidental background sounds!) and the unreleased live track “Wild Fire.” Like fellow French first-wavers MARIE ET LES GARÇONS, LES LOU’S’ minimally-chorded rock’n’roll rave-ups circle back to the VELVET UNDERGROUND/MODERN LOVERS model, with just enough leather-jacketed raw power to push it into punk; Francophone girls occupying their own private ’77 CBGBs. The rest of their recovered offerings might be far from lost classics, but “Take a Ride” is still unquestionably (no pun intended) a stroke of minor genius however it’s presented.
Anemic-sounding drum machine punk with simple riffs and an excess of tape hiss. Basic and a bit dumb, but I guess that’s the point. From what I can tell the band(?) is from Australia, and they’re on a Polish DIY cassette label. I think that’s a used condom on the cover? Or perhaps a human colon?
These Australian synth punks may have created the first treaty between the chains and the eggs with this record. Imagine the awkward handshake. You know the chains would squeeze too hard. Quirky synths zig and zag over loud punk guitars, drum machines, and gruff vocals. The shouted, reverbed hardcore vocals are what really set these folks apart from most current synth punk projects—the music is still bouncy, but this is most definitely a punk record. “Levitation” is a jam where the keyboards complement the guitars perfectly into a solid driving, ominous force. “Conflicted Interest” works equally well and reminds me of ANNO OMEGA (who put out one of my favorite releases last year). Good record for bruisers as well as those guys who do somersaults through the pit.
Supremely shambolic live-in-2011 tape from these Brisbane jangle punks. With the gross band name and Mike Diana-style cover art, I was bracing myself for something disgusting, but was pleasantly surprised to hear music closer to SWELL MAPS or maybe the VASELINES. With out-of-tune clean guitars, laconic, slurred vocals, and a performance that could politely be called messy, MEAT THUMP has a charm that comes from the joy of creating music for themselves. The lyrics are barely decipherable and sound like streams of consciousness, but they work and frequently match the vibe so well that the drunken-Lou Reed ramblings sound meaningful and tug at your heartstrings (especially “Box of Wine” and “Wish”). Does the band begin and end each song at the same time? Nope. Does this tape occasionally sound like complete shit? Yep. Do they incorporate a verse of EAZY-E’s “Boyz-n-the-Hood” in a really unfortunate way? Yeah, they do. Would I recommend this to anyone looking for earnest punk-inspired DIY creation? Absolutely. Postscript: As I was finishing up this review, I read that singer/guitarist Brendon Annesley passed away in 2012. That discovery had a sobering effect on what was a relatively light listen. Hug your friends and do stuff now instead of waiting for the future.
LOLLY GAGGERS harness a killer ’80s KILLING JOKE chant for the chorus of an eerie two-chord slog with poignant lyrics that hit even harder than the repetition does. MIDDLE-AGED QUEERS are more straight punk on the flip…poor choice of words. “Size Queen” is anything but “straight,” even though the music hits like FYP on poppers. More in-your-face (literally) queercore to balance the subtle introspective queercore on the flip, Bay Area represent.
Pete Dale has been putting out charming leftist agit-pop as MILKY WIMPSHAKE for close to 30 years now. I’ve been a fan since I first heard “Here’s to the State of Mr. Poodle” off of their 2006 record Popshaped. A send-up of Blair-ite Britain in the style of PHIL OCHS—yes, please! Released towards the end of 2020, Confessions of an English Marxist is their seventh full-length and their first since 2015’s Encore, Un Effort. Here MILKY WIMPSHAKE is a three-piece consisting of Pete, long-time bassist Christine Rowe, and drummer Emma Wigham. Rachel Kenedy (FLOWERS) sings on a few tracks, offering a sweet counterpart to Pete’s adenoidal vocal stylings. Everything here is as expected: jangling melodies, sardonic lyrics, and just enough edge to keep it from becoming insufferably cute. Very English, very Marxist. “Capitalism is a Perversion” and “Welcome to Fascist Britain” are cheeky protest songs that’ll get your toes tapping, while “I Just Can’t Escape Myself” and “Written My Hand” take a more personal, inward approach. The final track “I Don’t Want to Go There” is delicate and lovely, aided by Rachel Kenedy’s plaintive vocals. This may be one of their best yet.
Right off the bat, MILT introduces themselves with their fierce brand of garage and hardcore. The guitars are downright filthy, and the vocals manage to top that. It’s aggressive, gnarly, and dripping with attitude. Just about everything you could want in a punk tape. Australia has had something of a garage renaissance recently and this is some of the cream of the crop, for damn sure. A real highlight of this cassette is the band’s cover of the WIGGLES’ “Fruit Salad.” Any band who can pull off a WIGGLES cover deserves some praise.
A vinyl reissue of an album that was originally released on CD in 2000. MINORITY BLUES BAND kicks things off with five songs that are firmly rooted in punk but have underlying emo tendencies, with songs sung in English and their native Japanese. At times there’s a heavy CAP’N JAZZ vibe, albeit more in-tune and angry with a more controlled chaos. 1000 TRAVELS OF JAWAHARLAL are definitely holding it down with more of the same type of vibe as their comrades, but whereas MINORITY BLUES BAND is a bit more rooted in punk, I’d argue that JAWAHARLAL are screamo to the core. All in all, this is a great split and I for one am a huge fan of the split LP format, so the fact that this finally has seen a vinyl release is perfect.
This is an angry album. Gerda, the female lead vocalist, rails at the patriarchy and capitalism as the guitars weave back and forth easily between hardcore and metal. Each song is fast, crusty, and powerfully emotive lyrically. “Day of Reckoning ” is nothing less than a battle anthem from the gutter. “Fragmentation” is pure hardcore excellence with Gerda shouting back and forth with the male vocalist, Matte. They even throw in some violins and synthesizers on a couple tracks, and it takes nothing away from the blistering rawness. After nine tracks of anarcho-rage that fans of WOLFBRIGADE will appreciate, the album manages to close on a hopeful yet pissed-off note with “The Dying of the Light,” declaring to their children “To my daughter, to my son / The future is yours when the battle is done.”
A 2020 reissue of a South Bay band with San Pedro connections to the MINUTEMEN and SACCHARINE TRUST. While similar to those two bands in their lack of hardcore orthodoxy, MOOD OF DEFIANCE also lacks either those bands’ experimental musicality or oddball X-factor, mostly creating a plodding, mid-tempo hippie punk sound that nods at deathrock and nudges at psychedelia but doesn’t really go far out in either direction.
MOP BUCKETS is an L.A group comprised of scene veterans from bands like DEAD CROSS, RETOX, and FIELD DAY. This is a very “what you see is what you get” kind of record. Six straight-up punk tracks that hold their own any day of the week. MOP BUCKETS bring an aggressively angular style of punk. Something like the JESUS LIZARD or DRIVE LIKE JEHU, leaning heavily into post-hardcore at times. I wouldn’t go as far to say that this LP is the most inventive or original record in the genre, but it certainly holds up.
I have to admit that everytime I start listening to a really lo-fi recording, I always get excited. I really love when punk bands sound like that, because I feel like when something punk sounds really clean, it just feels weird. Three really short hardcore punk songs—the longest song is one minute and five seconds, as punk should be.
This shit is charming as all hell. A husband and wife making arts-and-crafty, socially conscious garage punk in the middle of America. Think DEAD MOON, STREET EATERS, and GROOVIE GHOULIES with some synth punk new wave-ish vibes. The first track is the winner, but both are swell. I bet they’d make a nice casserole and put clean sheets on the spare bed if you came through town. Night, all.
I gotta say, I’d seen this record in distros and always assumed based on the cover that it was some synthy Factory Records-worship by a lone band—MONONEGATIVES. Turns out this record does feature a synth…that’s maybe wielded in a less new wave-y manner than I was imagining, but also there’s a whole other band on here! MYSTERY GIRL is not the name of the record. Instead, they’re a punky power pop band out of Albany, NY, who kick things off with a couple tracks. “Loveline” starts as a somewhat ripping garage pop track that crashes into an odd cooing power pop chorus with really off-kilter harmonies. It caught me way off guard at first, but I came to appreciate its strangeness by the track’s end. For their other song, they slow down the BOYS’ “Tumble With Me” and turn it into some NEW YORK DOLLS-esque swagger rock. It’s a cool cover! London, Ontario’s MONONEGATIVES close things out with three tracks of synth-drenched, garage-y post-punk. A track like “Time Warp” even justifies my inkling about what this record would sound like—the bass line could have been plucked from an early NEW ORDER track. But overall these guys’ vibe is way heavier, and they come off sounding like a less gimmicky and more overtly post-punk SERVOTRON…or maybe a weedier A FRAMES. Either way, I’m into it!
Imagine early JUDAS PRIEST at its speediest, with shrieking, echoing black metal-style vocals, and that is NATTMARAN. Nominally out of Sweden, this old-school thrash powerhouse is actually an international collaboration of Michael Lang (Sweden) on guitar and bass, Koji Sawada (Japan) on drums, and Yoga Beges (Indonesia) on vocals. In fact, only the guitars and bass were recorded in Sweden. The rest of the recording, as well as the mixing and mastering, was done in Indonesia. There’s lots to like here for fans of VENOM or MOTÖRHEAD. The blackened thrash never lets up, and yet for all its grim speed, evil lyrics, and overall hostility, a nasty rock’n’roll swagger permeates every track. As blackened as it may be, on some tracks, like “There’s Nothing You Can See,” one could imagine substituting a power metal wailer’s vocals and transforming the song into a speed metal arena anthem.
NECRO HEADS bring us some brazen hardcore in the vein of NEGATIVE APPROACH and NEGATIVE FX. If you’re looking for artful nuance, keep looking. If you’re looking to thrash around like an animal for a few minutes until there’s spit and snot dripping from your beet-red mug, this aptly-named record will probably do the trick.
New French quartet, kind of in the realm of hardcore, but with atypical babydoll vocals that come in syllable-jamming succession. The combo lands nicely. The closer “Super Skate” is an interpretation of a RIKA ZARAρ track (1978 French pop song about skateboarding? Yes, please). I don’t know how I feel about the eponymous anthem trope of “Neuf Volts,” so maybe it’s good they got it out of their system on the demo. I’ll keep listening.
Thirteen-song, long-playing debut cassette release, which appears to be the first half of the bands “nervous birds duology,” so there is presumably a Nervous Birds! Two cassette coming at some point. Upbeat indie pop, not quite gritty enough to affix the often thrown-around “punk” attachment to their “pop” genre. People who dig the pop stylings of MARKED MEN or JAWBREAKER would likely find enjoyment in this Vancouver-based band.
This is a compilation of singles, demos, outtakes and Peel sessions by this experimental ensemble, and in most cases, if I see the words “experimental” or “dub-inspired” in relation to British post-punk circa ’79–’81, I’m all ears. I adore the POP GROUP, THIS HEAT, and the FLYING LIZARDS, but NORMIL HAWAIIANS have none of the bleeding edge, fiery energy, or avant-garde outness I admire in those bands. Mostly this sounds in the camp of anarcho goth (or gothy anarcho, depending on whether your peanut butter got in the chocolate or vice versa). The songs are mostly a trudge, barring the single “Party Party,” which sounds like an ORANGE JUICE outtake, and their unexpected cover of FRANK ZAPPA’s “Mr. Green Genes”, which mostly inspired me to turn this off and pull out my old copy of Uncle Meat for a spin.
Berlin has been the dominant player in the neo-Neue Deutsche Welle scene, from the Allee Der Kosmonauten collective (AUS, DIE SCHIEFE BAHN, etc.) to the recent output of the Mangel label (with the likes of KLAPPER and OSTSEETRAUM), but just a few hours to the south, the much smaller city of Leipzig has been holding its own, too—last year’s killer LP from MARAUDEUR exuded playful, synth-damaged art-punk cool, and this debut cassette from the new quartet ONYON brings shrouded-but-spiky, subtly goth-tinted post-punk à la early XMAL DEUTSCHLAND out of the Cold War and into the digital age. Vocals alternate between German and English, rarely deviating from a sternly deadpan shout, the beats are of the martial, unwaveringly hi-hat/snare-forward variety, and period-perfect ’80s keys help to scratch that waved-out Zickzack itch. When they raise the urgency level a bit, like on “Octopus” and especially “Klick,” ONYON pushes through the fog of mid-tempo cold-punk and right into the keyed-up synth punk territory of KITCHEN & THE PLASTIC SPOONS—those moments are when the tape really blazes; hoping they lean even harder into the wild electro-art-punk impulses next time around.
Except for two cuts on the New Hope comp, Cleveland’s OUTERWEAR has been woefully under-documented. Praise be to Scat for gifting us a belated deluge in the form of 24 tracks recorded back in 1983. OUTERWEAR was two-thirds SPIKE IN VAIN and one-third Beth Scarf. They made quite a racket. Led by Chris Marec, OUTERWEAR would be the perfect house band for a serial killer mixer. I can see some joker putting a human-skin lampshade on his head while “Piss II” plays, followed by the damp, leaky punk of “Herpes Condo.” Although OUTERWEAR is more explicitly hardcore, parallels can be drawn to other scene oddballs like SCRATCH ACID and MIGHTY SPHINCTER. This late-blooming album is a glorious pisstake. If only all side projects slayed this hard.
There’s something so perfect about the prolonged keyboard drones throughout this record. They go on for so long, hitting an ear-aching interval, that I honestly wondered at first if something was wrong with my headphones. That’s top-tier brattiness, and it serves each and every track on this synth punk classic. PACK RAT is the brainchild of CHAIN WHIP and CORNER BOYS drummer Patrick McEachnie, who wrote and performed the whole affair. On songs like “Next Time Hit Me,” McEachnie strikes a balance between the DAMNED (first record only) and something almost more akin to the boom of early 2000s bratty keyboard pop like ATOM AND HIS PACKAGE (except way better) or something cooler like the SPITS at their most android-rock. Drawing those comparisons only scratches the surface, really. What you get here is solid songwriting that sounds beautifully pissed-off and will always catch you off-guard. “I never was a virgin, I was fucked from the start” sings McEachnie on “Blame It on Me,” which really sums up the overall world view manifested in soundwaves. Top-notch prankster punk, if your idea of a good prank is blowing up someone’s toilet.
Gruff, melodic, catchy pop punk with an edge. The kind that appeals to the “Fest crowd,” no doubt. Their song “80-85” is a surefire anthem. Limited to 300 copies, and I’m sure the packaging will annoy more than a few people, but it’s a good sing-along record and that should make up for the less-than-conventional packaging.
Here’s a beguiling one, a short broadcast of weirdness from Omaha that is shivering with cold and tape hiss. It really is an exercise in presentation, as the degraded quality of sound perfectly mirrors the metronomic soundtrack to collapse. Contemporaries that leap to mind are INSTITUTE and even DAWN OF HUMANS, although I don’t recall either of those bands ever incorporating bongos into their sound. Well, guess what, POTPOURRI goes for it, and although at first blush my ears were trying to pinpoint what the hell it was, it actually lends an interesting layer. Everything here sounds like it was either intricately placed or improvised entirely, the kind of balanced chaos that perfectly suits a certain type of heady, lo-fi punk. The guitar has a really nice sonorous tone to it in addition to being harsh and tinny—one of the many balancing acts going on that really make this band shine. It’s feel-bad music that feels really good.
Bombastic, chugging metallic punk from Düsseldorf, Germany. This four-song demo gives strong early VENOM vibes with dissonant, grinding guitars, thick bass lines, and evil, growling vocals. The aesthetic of this demo reeks of the good old tape-trading days where the bands had more enthusiasm than quality recording equipment or graphic design skills. The result is no-frills headbanging and foot-stomping. Each track is packed with riffs and attitude. The first three stomp along at a moderate pace, and then the final track, “Fascist Scum,” picks up the pace to hardcore speeds. In fact, their Facebook page has a great portrait-mode cellphone video of them performing it live back in September 2020 in an actual garage and is worth a look.
Lo-fi ’80s Polish hardcore demo given a deluxe gatefold reissue by Warsaw Pact. Chunky riffs and blitzing tunes, minimal tape hiss, and cymbals cutting hard in the drum mix. This type of punk isn’t my wheelhouse, the liner notes are in Polish, and I couldn’t find much info online, but if obscure Eastern Euro hardcore is your bag, then this should probably be in it.
Here we have four sunbaked, relaxed-but-tight tracks of verbed-out rock‘n’roll from Australia (who seem to specialize in it). REVV stands out in how the sound balances more laid-back cruisin’ vibes with a healthy dose of dissonance and angularity. The title track really exemplifies this with guitar licks that slip around hazily and disorienting, all draped across a tight and confident rhythm section. The other cuts are strong, too; a good little tape that gives you what you need.
SCHEDULE 1 formed right before pandemic lockdowns, and managed to put out this debut LP in the interim. There seems to be some Vancouver, BC new-wave-that-leans-towards-emo melodic “thing” happening, and this certainly shakes that tree. Think of the KILLERS mashed up with NEW ORDER. For me it’s a little too whiny, shiny, and overproduced. All said, it’s a tight album, and SCHEDULE 1 makes some catchy dance beats.
Reissue of the lone 1978 from this band from Northwest England. Two catchy-as-heck, properly angst-filled tunes. The guys responsible for this excellent 7″ are Nick Name, Phil Serious and Kid Sick. Great names and great songs. If you have not heard this, don’t wait a minute longer. Fantastic.
SEDICIÓN is one of the founding bands of Mexican hardcore. Hailing from the city of Guadalajara, they started in 1988 with an imagination influenced by anarchism, bringing a poignant, pacifist, and self-critical point of view to the social and political misery of Mexico in the ’80s, in the throes of the authoritarian regime of a single party that ruled in those years. They released several albums, participated in splits with bands like HEREJÍA and M.E.L.I., and evolved their sound during the ’90s to approach melodic hardcore, managed to tour Spain (mainly in libertarian centers and squats in the Basque Country), and split up in 1995 only to return two years later, releasing a couple of albums and touring Mexico and Spain again. The group became inactive in the early ’00s, with some sporadic reunions to play live. As of 2018, the group reunited to celebrate 30 years, touring Mexico and Latin America, and it is precisely that inertia that generates an interest in reissuing their albums. Austin label Esos Malditos Punks reissued on vinyl En Las Calles from 1990 and Verdaderas Historias de Terror from 1991. Now, Punk n Vomit reissues their seminal debut Extintos from 1988. The album is harsh, brutal, savage, blunt, and violent, and at the same time, extremely catchy. A piece of late 20th century Mexican history. A great entry point for the uninitiated is “Líderes,” with one of the best riffs in the history of world punk. A must.
Two words: crasher crust! It’s one of those genres that you either love or hate, due to the repetitiveness of the genre’s tropes. But sometimes a band comes along that makes the genre a bit more rich. SISTEMA EN DECADENCIA is such a band! After an amazing split with FEROCIOUS X, Nuestro Legado sees the light of day. Nine tracks of blistering crasher crust, noisy and fuzzed-out, worshipping ’90s Japanese bands like the almighty GLOOM. These chaos aficionados come from Melbourne and play in EXECUTION, SOMA COMA, DEJECTOR, and KRÖMOSOM, for reference. They sing in Spanish and that only adds to the urgency felt throughout. If you like pedals and fast D-beats, get this record now!
SLUTBOMB plays metallic thrash fastcore that reminds me of CAPITALI$T ALIENATION meets wild ’90s street punk. They are by no means sloppy, but the delivery is hasty and has that intense early death/thrash delivery. Parts sound like MANKIND?, parts sound like IRON REAGAN. Lead guitar soloing is on point. There are moments of twangy country rock, quickly interrupted by churning hardcore. Honestly, I’m having a hard time describing this one. Its various changes are impressive and at times distracting. The production could be heavier on the bass-and-kick side, but SLUTBOMB has many elements of punk and metal, and it doesn’t let up—they really put a lot of songwriting into this LP, which could easily have been four spoonfuls of EP sugar. But SLUTBOMB don’t play that way. Sixteen tracks of maniacal thrashcore with anarchistic tones and filled with independent identity.
Who doesn’t love a great Scandinavian punk band? It´s been a while since I’ve heard one like SOCIALSTYRELSEN, a band that is more on the melodic side of the crust spectrum. Med Rädsla För Livet is their debut album, and what an album it is! The darkness of neocrust melodies permeates the typical Scandinavian D-beat backbone, creating a gloomy atmosphere throughout. The vocals pierce angrily through the instruments and evoke the harshness of SKITSYSTEM or AMBULANCE. A band to keep an eye out for!
Before teaching themselves the instruments that they would use to make timeless buzzsaw punk/C86 pop in CHIN CHIN, bassist Esther and drummer Marianne started out as co-vocalists in the ’80s-goes-’60s group SOPHISTICATED BOOM BOOM—three women up front at the mic with musical backing provided by all-male Swiss punks SOZZ, offering up malt shop sounds for the new wave age. With a band name lifted from the SHANGRI-LAS and more than a few song titles that could have been pulled straight from the RONETTES/CHIFFONS/SHIRELLES (“Jimmy Jimmy,” “Ready to Dance,” “Yeah Yeah Yeah,” etc.), the girl group influence on SOPHISTICATED BOOM BOOM’s 1982 LP is just as pronounced as it was in CHIN CHIN’s soaring-but-wistful, “Be My Baby”-layered harmonies, crashed through the wall of sound to hit more of a twist-and-shout garage beat with wailing sax and giddy teen dance energy. For all of the blatant retromania, there’s also some very de rigeur ’80s post-punk moves in the BOOM BOOM mix, like the spacious dub echo and spectral RAINCOATS-esque vocals in “Dance With Me,” or “Boom Boom Rap” snapping into some elastic downtown funk-punk, or the horn-spiked, PIGBAG’d polyrhythmic clatter of “Numa”—the result is almost precisely Red Bird meets Rough Trade, and it’s charming as hell.
Decatur, Illinois breeds a special kind of degenerate. Midwest, bleak, broke, and hopeless. These boys are trying to break the cycle of misery through rock’n’roll, and who could blame them. They obviously are trying their hearts out, playing their ZEKE-meets-KYUSS-meets-SLIPKNOT brand noise with some MADBALL breakdowns. You could easily see them as second-to-last on a twenty-band bill in some bleak megaplex boasting a KORN reunion. There they are, rocking their hearts out and stealing the other bands’ beer. The title track ain’t bad. Give them a break and buy their records.
Four doses of fast and furious Midwestern hardcore punk. Tasteful touches of metal (the slow bit in “Counting the Days” into the “let’s go” that brings back the charge is especially choice) and lots of single-note guitar picking à la Filthy Phil, and then they drop serious tonnage on the hardcore breakdowns. Q: What do you get when you combine testosterone, beer, full stacks, and denim? A: SOY CITY STRANGLERS.
The non-stop, hard-working Clevo wrecking machine SPIKE PIT pumps out yet another, and this might be the best so far. Technically, this is three songs from the upcoming magnus opus Bastard of No Future LP, with a couple bonuses like the insane title track and the aptly-named “Annoying” (I dare you to listen to the whole song). Thrash, bash, slash with no cash could be this band’s motto, as they slay with CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER metallic-testicled PUNCTURE WOUND/GSMF-like hardcore punk fury. “White World” is clever and tasteless as hell. Pure genius. More please now give me!
From too damn cold and funky Buffalo, New York, SPIT KINK has hocked up this wet, sticky loogie headed straight for your ears like a sexy wet willie, full of klang drum machine, industrial-sized bass lines, and sawtooth synths. These are some seriously sassy party rockers that give me major GENE DEFCON/PRIMA DONNAS vibes, and I love it. Get a few dozen strobe lights going and this duo can probably turn a Rust Belt living room into the sweatiest dance floor.
By the album title, I thought I was in for some egg-punk silliness, but instead found an Oakland, CA hardcore foursome that sounds like Sister-era SONIC YOUTH. This is a four-song single-sided 12″, with a screen-printed B-side of “The World Needs Laughter” in an eye chart logo. The guitar and violin outro on “Lead Blanket” form a nice break before the heavy-hitting title track that slaps in half the time of its predecessor. STRANGELIGHT’s tour starts off in Oakland this month, so get after it.
Oi! from France. Oui? There’s some kind of wordplay to be worked out here. Regardless, this Nantes-based crew fully brings it with seven tracks of rough-and-tumble working class rumblers. This feels cozy alongside contemporaries from across the channel CHUBBY & THE GANG and the CHISEL, hitting the same sweet spot of bluesy stomp with beer hall shout-along anthems that are properly pissed-off and world-weary. The guitars cut really nicely here, just the right amount of sharpness on the ear. The vocals have that rock-gargling quality to them as well, exactly what you’re looking for in proper fookin’ Oi! If you’ll pardon my incorrect French: this is très bonne merde, indeed.
Both TELESATAN and DISPO feature a lot of feedback, clamor, and fuzz. TELESATAN plays fun, conventional punk defined by a big farty bass sound, cymbal crashes, and screeching guitars. The vocalists scream, yowl and taunt (think BLATZ’s side of Shit Split). Occasionally they slow to a FLIPPER-like crawl. DISPO’s songs continue in this vein. Both bands balance out the noise with catchy riffs and choruses.
A strange reissue for the true Adrian Borland completists out there who are hungry for more than the SOUND and the OUTSIDERS. That isn’t to say it sounds like either of those bands, but it’s a curio nonetheless.The record is culled from a single 1978 recording session of the OUTSIDERS backing their friend Pete Williams in noisy, one-take improvi-punk weirdness. The nearest I can lodge this is maybe somewhere between the FUCKIN’ FLYIN’ A-HEADS, the AFFLICTED MAN, or the SMEGMA side project JUNGLE NAUSEA. I’ve got a certain tolerance for this type of bugged-out freaknik splatter, but while it’s an interesting document, it mostly seems like an inside joke between friends that was probably more fun to record than it actually is to listen to.
A tape of demos and live tracks by these legendary Indiana proto-punks, who’ve had more afterlife than they did actual life. There’s early versions of future GIZMOS classics like “Human Garbage Disposal” and “Kiss of the Rat” and others that would be heard on later releases. They’ve included a live recording of the band stumbling joyfully out-of-tune through their obnoxious ode to oral, “Muff Divin,” at a drunken house party. Also included is a previously unreleased recording of the first jam session the group had together (in the kitchen of Gulcher’s Bob Richart), being true rock’n’roll nerds as they laugh their way through covers of KISS, the STOOGES, and “Rambling Rose” by the MC5 (with the Brother JC Crawford “Are You Ready to Testify?” intro intact, natch). It’s these recordings that make this a compelling reissue, giving it personality and a story, which is so much more interesting than upholding obscurity for obscurity’s sake. This is a Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes type of recording that will give all GIZMOS completists out there some real Hoosier hysteria.
The HAMILTONES follow up their incredible Dracula Invitational, 1791 LP from last year with a live cassette on Primitive Screwhead, the Big Neck Records live cassette subsidiary label. End of February 2014 in Buffalo, NY: lo-fi nasty instrumental surf rock plays as an absolutely bonkers party rages around. Punkers in Buffalo have had this recurring event for years now, with a beach party taking place in the midst of winter to attempt to stave off the seasonal blues. Heat is cranked, swimwear is donned by all those in attendance, and on this special year, musical guests the HAMILTONES performed live in a jam-packed living room. I happened to be at this party, and I don’t exactly remember things being as debaucherous as fellow attendee Micky Harmon depicted in his artist’s rendering of the evening on a wild-looking four-panel foldout cover for this cassette. Though, the more I think about it and listen to these tunes, the more accurate I think the artwork actually is.
Primitive Screwhead continues to unearth lo-fi recordings debatably worthy of cassette releases on their live-recordings-only label. This time we find a recording from over twenty years ago, originally recorded in 2001 by Dutch punk/sleazy rock’n’roll outfit the HOT POCKETS. Stumbling through a 30-minute set of originals as well as covers by the NERVES, the REAL KIDS, and even GUNS N’ ROSES, the band keeps the audience on their toes with their juvenile between-song banter and out-of-tune harmonizing vocal attempts. Seems like this was probably a bit of a beautiful disaster to behold in the moment.
Forming from the ashes of SST (band, not label), the JARS were an active, if marginal, player in the early Berkeley punk scene. Their first single (Start Rite Now) was just the fourth release on the now legendary Subterranean label. Despite their links to bands like FLIPPER and DEAD KENNEDYS, the JARS’ brand of self-described “psycho-pop” owes more to ’60s surf and garage than their California punk contemporaries. This archival collection compiles the entirety of their recorded output: a couple of singles alongside several live tracks and unreleased studio recordings. Tracks like “Start Rite Now” and “Teenage Rebellion” are bright, simple pop songs with a zany edge courtesy of a Farfisa organ, while on other tracks, such as “Electric 3rd Rail,” they stretch out into more discomfiting territory. Their ’60s influences are made most obvious by a handful of live instrumental covers of classic TV show themes, as well as a SONICS cover (“Psycho”). It’s a good time. Fans of Bay Area punk history and ROKY ERICKSON’s songs about creatures with atom brains will enjoy the JARS’ good-natured kitschiness.
More than four decades after their demise, the WELDERS still remain one of the most supremely cool bands of all-time—five teenage girls (all between thirteen and fifteen when they started) who were inspired by the British Invasion and glitter rock to form their own band in St. Louis, Missouri(!) in 1975(!!), just before the first wave of punk would break in the Midwest and a whole year before the superficially similar RUNAWAYS would release their first album(!!!). The first four tracks on Our Own Oddities were sourced from an unreleased 1979 EP that BDR eventually rescued and pressed to 7″ in 2010 (the only recorded document of the WELDERS until now), with a glam-rooted power pop bounce presaging the Bomp!-ed sound of later groups like NIKKI AND THE CORVETTES. The members of the WELDERS were all bookish honor student types who consciously rejected any sort of tough, hyper-sexualized RUNAWAYS-esque posturing right off the bat, and the abandoned EP features some seriously smart, viciously clever songs that took lecherous creeps to task (“P-E-R-V-E-R-T”), embraced their good-girl reputations (“S-O-S Now,” a prude empowerment anthem written after they got grief for their reluctance to look at a photo of Captain Sensible of the DAMNED sans pants!), and skewered regressive patriarchal traditions (“Debutantes in Bondage”), with a classically lovelorn ’60s girl group-meets-bubblegum punk number (“Baby Don’t Go”) thrown in for good measure. The rest of the LP is an assemblage of never-heard live recordings, basement demos, and a handful of takes from free studio sessions that guitarist Rusty was provided with as part of a college recording class, charting the WELDERS’ movement through some lineup changes and stylistic turns as the ’70s ended, with keyboards and an expanding post-punk awareness entering the picture by 1980 (according to the liner notes, the multi-lingual jagged pop jam “Tourist Trap” was influenced by vocalist Colleen’s “favorite band MAGAZINE,” and it shows). It’s all uniformly excellent, and if some of those later rehearsal tapes had been captured in a less roughed-up context, they could have easily fit into a new wave landscape of B-52’S and ROMEO VOIDs—the alternate timeline’s loss is our current timeline’s gain.
Chula Vista’s TOURIST’s new cassette release consists of five tracks of crushing hardcore/fastcore hell. Even though we may not be able to call this “powerviolence” because the department of H.S.M.P. enforcement will not tolerate it, this is a closer, modernized hardcore version of the genre done very well in 2022. Tracks of anger and frustration from constant hopelessness and devastation are well suited these times. For fans of OG’s CROSSED OUT to more modern-sounding hardcore such as WEEKEND NACHOS and CURSED.
TOXIC CONTROL is all over the map in style, from raw street punk to dub mixed with grunt-like Japanese rap to grimacing muffled noisecore and some roots rock…it all seems very deliberately abrasive. Sung in Japanese, some song title examples include “End Stop and Frisk,” “Fuck Homophobia,” “All You Fascists Bound to Lose,” and “Who Killed the City?,” and with lyrics provided in English, I can really start to relate with TOXIC CONTROL. TOXIC CONTROL is from Tokyo, but I’d like to know the answer to who killed where I live, too—I think we all do. The irony is not lost on me…anyway, I find myself bouncing to this gnarly bizarre punk expression like I’m young, free and crazy. Unfortunately, I’m left with crazy, but I’d like to be free if only in my mind. TOXIC CONTROL definitely are. Nice work from this three-piece. Reminds me of ZYANOSE meets very early CASUALTIES or CHOKING VICTIM. “Tu Puedes! Antifascista!“
Mean-spirited and frequently atonal noise rock from these Winnipeg crushers. For fans of TRIGGER CUT and TONGUE PARTY, this record features extremely tight rhythms with frequent time changes, filthy bass tones, and math-inspired dissonant guitars. The vocals veer from sardonic spoken verses to screamed parts. There is quite a bit of instrumental complexity happening in these tracks, and TUNIC creates an unending sense of tension and unease. Take the alternating feedback tones of “Stuck,” or the plodding start/stop bass lines of “Fake Interest.” The refrain of “Pattern Fixation” probably says it best: “This is filth / This is filth.” If you like unpleasant, pessimistic noise punk, you’ll be into this.
Described on State Champion’s site as “Philly’s most haunted and deranged freaks”—this lot rocks. It’s fast and fun and heavy and is over before you know it: three songs on a single-sided 12″ with a hand screen-printed photo on the vinyl’s B-side. “Fall in a Pit” is a fantastic track, displaying TVO’s growth towards a tighter sound compared to their other releases, while still achieving that unhinged garage punk sound. Fall in a Pit made my Year End Top Ten, so what can I say, I’m a little biased!
NY’s TWO MAN ADVANTAGE are one the metro area’s longest continually-running punk bands. They have a formula and stick to it: standard-issue hardcore punk with a hockey theme. This LP features songs from NYC and Las Vegas shows. Personally, I don’t like live albums. They seem unnecessary for punk songs, which typically don’t vary much between the recorded and live versions. The mix here is nothing special and the second set is especially poor. TWO MAN’s strengths, honed since the 1990s, are better captured on their studio albums.
Heavy, churning, sample-laden project based in Southern California. The intensity of MANKIND? and the tonnage of early KYLESA packed into a tight, focused hardcore punk attack with guest vocalists from OVER (Portland) and BLACK SHEEP WALL. This one is all power, folks, and between-song commentary only adds to the intensity.
The late ’70s/early ’80s UK DIY scene turned the locals-only comp into an art form, committing countless one-and-done regional obscurities to wax and priming the pump that the Messthetics series would return to again and again in the subsequent century. Buntingford is never going to be mentioned in the same breath as Manchester or Leeds when recounting the era’s post-punk boom, but it still fostered enough of a scene to produce the seven bands immortalized on this 1981 LP collection; for a tiny market town of a couple thousand people, Buntingford was apparently punching above its weight by measure of bands per capita (although as in most small, close-knit music communities, some overlapping personnel between projects was definitely going on). There’s relatively straight rock’n’roll with a smudge of the UNDERTONES (the OTHERS) and vaguely CLASH-inspired post-pub-rock sounds (the RUN) in the mix, but the more off-center and unpolished contributions are the undisputed winners of The Buntingford Long Playing Album—the INFINITE LOTS do warbling retrofuturist synth punk like the SOUND re-envisioned as a Subterranean Records act, the nihilistic clatter of “Sheltered Life” by RIVERSIDE ROCKY sketches out the sort of (SWELL) maps that the SUBURBAN HOMES would unfold three decades later, the DEBUTANTES charm with two scrappy twee-punk songs in a DOLLY MIXTURE/GIRLS AT OUR BEST fashion, with airy teenage femme vocals straining at the upper register limits that make it all the better, and the CHOKE offers up a pair of totally ace, TELEVISION PERSONALITIES-esque naive mod-pop numbers (the lopsidedly catchy “Top Man” could be their own “Jackanory Stories”), although the completely collapsing drum beats of “Concrete Buildings” carry them into an echelon of shamble far beyond the Dan Treacy realm; I’m here for it.
Literal twelve-year-old AJ Cortes, label boss over at the Miami-based Gravity Hill Records (a cassette label), has compiled sixteen slime-covered tracks from whatever strain of mutants have evolved in this post-LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS world. As you probably gathered from the title, this comp is meant to combat human trafficking in some sense. Although, it’s unclear whether the proceeds are going to a particular organization or if this comp is just meant to “raise awareness.” In any case, at just $4 for the digital release, you’re getting a pretty big bang for your buck. The compilation features a lot of folks who you’ve likely already heard and have opinions about—M.A.Z.E., PRINT HEAD, BILLIAM, and NEO NEOS to name a few. But it also features even more artists whom you’ve likely never heard of (or you’ve had your ear way closer to the ground than I have). We’re getting tracks from WWW, YOKE, GEORGE CRUSTANZA, MAYGE, and the SUXX—if you don’t like the first set of bands I named, you won’t like these either. Mr. Cortes supplies at least three of the tracks on here as well with his projects AJ CORTES AND THE BURGLARS and BENNY AND THE BOYS, the latter of whom cover two tracks by the WAD. You absolutely have to give “Nog Bag” a listen—the bass sound that starts the track is so insane and great that I might actually prefer this to the original. And it wouldn’t be a punk comp without a seemingly out-of-place/shitty track, and unfortunately that is provided here by HEARTLESS FOLK—this sounds like GOOD RIDDANCE or some other Fat Wrecks grunty pop punk. Anyway, this release really reminded me of what I loved about those early days of Lumpy Records—just a bevy of weirdo bands I’ve never heard of, not all of whom I like, but all of whom make me sit up and think, “Whoa! What the hell is this?!”
Decent hardcore from this Atlanta band. “Judgement” opens with gross, echoed vocals over crisply recorded HC/D-beat. “Hesher Fuck” stands out because of that great title. It gets repeated a lot over about two minutes of mid-tempo hardcore, which is a positive. “Grind Set” is the best song here due to some nimble rolls and blastbeats that fit the music and vocal attitude nicely. A full tape of faster, harsher songs like this one would be a treat. I would definitely listen to the next WEB release, although this one is a little by-the-numbers for me.
